Befores and Afters
by organanation
Summary: Earth AU. Poland 1939. The nazis have invaded the countryside. Two strangers, a Polish national and a Jewish woman, ride through the silent forest on a bicycle, carrying out orders from their resistance cell. This story follows Han and Leia as they resist against hatred and push onward toward their 'after'. Content warning: dark themes. Specific warnings on chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Hello! We're back with another Earth AU that no one asked for. This story is ultimately about love and triumph, but it deals with some dark parts of humanity: namely the Holocaust. Consider this your content warning: there's some dark things ahead. I hope, if you choose to read, that you think I've treated these characters and history with the respect they deserve. _

1939

Germany invaded Poland in September. It took nearly a month for the tendrils of the military to spread throughout the surrounding countryside, and Han Alleine watched with his neighbors as they marched into the village on a rainy morning.

Nothing was changing, they insisted. It was to improve things. What _things_ there were that needed improvement, no one ever said.

So they tried to exist as if everything was normal. Han was a bricklayer, and he continued stacking chimneys and building paths.

One day he was approached by a man in a dark blue coat with pins and patches all across the chest. The man insisted that Han come to the edge of town the next morning. The _Fatherland_ needed his skills for a special project for which he'd be rewarded handsomely, if he agreed.

At the appointed time, he arrived. Several other men, all bricklayers or skilled builders, were gathered there as well. A truck came by and they climbed inside.

A short drive through the forest led them to wall of barbed wire. More uniformed men let the truck through the gates. Another layer of barbed wire. Guards with guns and vicious dogs on short chains roved the area between the fences. Finally, the truck jolted to a stop and the men jumped down, being led across the camp by the same man that had gathered them up the day before.

Their eyes all fell on the skeletal figures in the distance, all clad in striped uniforms, carrying shovels and other digging implements toward a massive pit near the fenceline.

Han's stomach roiled.

It wasn't his problem, though. Nothing he could do to stop it.

The builders were led to a wide, empty area.

"We're building a gas chamber. We've got the plans and the materials, we just need your labor."

No one had to ask what it was for. They knew the rumors. He couldn't ignore the knot in his stomach anymore. He hadn't vomited since childhood, but he was determined to remain calm.

Han didn't hear anything else that was said. He followed at the back of the group, taking slow breaths and trying to ignore the smell. At the end of their little tour, they were walked back through one of the buildings at the first layer of fencing. A secretary took their information one by one.

Through an open doorway, he saw a room full of women with shaven heads sitting at desks, carefully writing. A guard roved between the rows, and he watched as the guard's hand wandered over a few of the women, who could do nothing but allow it.

After giving his name to the secretary, they loaded into the truck for the ride back to town.

As they were pulling away, he saw a group of ghost-like children playing in the dirt near the edge of the fence.

Bile rose before he could hope to control it; he vomited over the back of the truck.

There was nothing he could do to stop them, but he'd be damned before he helped those bastards. Han did not appear for work the next morning, nor any morning after.

00

He met her the day of his first resistance operation. It had been mysterious: instructions passed in code, a munitions drop in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town, meeting up with an unnamed operative just after dusk to place the dynamite on the tracks and hide in the bushes to see that it went undisturbed until the 11:35 troop train passed on its way to one of the camps.

He'd almost not believed that _she_ was an operative—a tiny whip of a thing, gaunt, almost skeletal in appearance. There was a gray shadow around her face that he wasn't completely sure was simply from the cover of nightfall. They'd hardly spoken beyond the passphrases that identified themselves to the other. She'd seemed physically weak—he'd carried the dynamite during the 1.5 mile hike to the tracks because she already appeared to be collapsing under the weight of her own slight form. Still, her mental strength had vastly accommodated for it; when they'd pressed the detonator, she'd watched the sky light up from their hiding place.

_Nazis,_ he reminded himself. _Nazis on their way to torture and kill. _The idea of taking so many lives still didn't sit well with him, but she looked…. Not pleased. Vindicated, perhaps.

"Your next instructions will come in a few days," she murmured to him before slipping into the darkness of the forest. Truth be told, he wasn't sure she wasn't a ghost.

It had gone on like that for a few weeks, receiving instructions tucked into his loaf of bread from the baker. Sometimes it was another sabotage mission, other times it was as a guide, moving refugees from one place to another in the cover of complete darkness and eerie silence. Sometimes she was there. Other times it was someone else or he acted alone.

Finally after a month of proving his usefulness, he'd been allowed to join in a planning meeting. The directions brought him to the back room of one of the shops downtown. After slipping in the backdoor, he found the secret entrance concealed beneath the rug and knocked on the little door at the end of the rickety stairs. Passphrases were exchanged, and he was in.

A room with earth for walls, ceiling and floor, the only light coming from a tiny kerosene lamp. A root cellar beneath the building, repurposed for top secret meetings.

In the flickering light he could hardly make out his own hands in front of his face, much less the faces of those around him. It was better that way: better that he not recognize the others, better that they not recognize him. Plausible deniability on every front.

A female voice with the code name 'Phantom' led the meeting, describing their next several targets in a whisper. Ideas were shared, possible hiding places and new sources of supplies. The number of refugees they hoped to traffic through the area. Many POW's were on the list, he realized, coming from the camp 20 miles north. Heroes.

They left one by one at the end of the meeting so as not to draw suspicion. He caught a glimpse of her face in the light as she held the lamp aloft so others could climb the stairs in relative safety. _Her. _The skeletal woman from his first mission. The leader of their pod, a woman who looked like death walking.

She'd gained some strength since then, able to stand straight and tall without a hint of wavering in her posture. She'd looked at him with brown eyes that were sunken into their sockets.

"You've proved yourself. Welcome to the resistance," she murmured as she pointed him up the staircase.

The next months carried on like that—meetings, missions, refugees, trying to live in the light like a good citizen of an occupied territory—keeping his head down, accepting his meagre rations without complaint, never catching the eyes of the blue uniforms that patrolled the town, living in the darkness like the rebel he was becoming.

A few more missions passed with the Phantom. He began to recognize her shadow in the starlight, began to notice how it changed from skeletal to simply bony and underfed. Everyone was bony and underfed these days.

Like a ghost, she'd slip out of the shadows at their prescribed meeting time. When the mission was complete, she'd vanish into the fog, a figment of his imagination. She haunted his mind too, visiting his dreams quietly in the night as he slept or in the empty hours of the day as he let his thoughts wander.

He never saw her in town. He assumed she lived in the root cellar, her face too recognizable for it to be safe living out in the open. He'd leave a bit of something—a chunk of bread, a piece of cheese, anything he could spare—on the makeshift table after the meetings. Rations were few and far between, meaning meals were often made of watery soup with a few chunks of potato or cabbage swimming in the tasteless broth. Still, he had only himself to feed. He could spare a mouthful here and there.

Eventually, after feeling certain that another member of the group was snatching it before she could, Han started pressing it into her hand or jacket pocket on his way out. She'd never reply verbally, keeping it a silent thing between only them. But she'd let her hand linger in his or meet his eyes for a long moment to show that it was appreciated, even if she couldn't utter the words.

The topic of food came up during one of their meetings. One of the operatives complained about the lack of food. His home was a stop on the escape route and he always had extra mouths to feed. '_I swear, they feed them better in the camps.'_

She grew immediately solemn, yanking her long sleeve up over her elbow, baring her forearm to the lamplight. Five black numbers etched into her ashen skin. She'd been in a camp.

If he hadn't respected her before, he did now. It was beyond respect: awe, compassion, unadulterated admiration.

Her appearance made sense: the hallows around her eyes, her slip of a figure, the days at the beginning when it seemed she couldn't lift even her own legs. The way everyone accepted her word as law, gospel. She _knew _what it was like in there.

The complaining member mumbled an apology and Han passed him an extra ration card.

He learned her name on their next mission: Leia. He told her his: Han. He did not mention the tattoo.

They were together on every mission from then on, falling into such an easy rhythm that it hardly seemed dangerous anymore. It was just a simple foray in the countryside, as if everyone carried a woman and a few dozen dynamite charges on their bicycle through the woods at midnight. The ease with which Leia faced death… it made sense now. Those camps made one look death square in the eyes, and now that she'd done that and won, Han assumed that there was little she feared anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Eight months after that first mission with Leia, the loaf that the baker handed him did not have a slip of paper at the bottom. A guard stood in the shop. As Han handed his ration ticket to the baker, the man stared into his eyes for a moment too long, as if willing Han to read his mind. The baker shot his eyes deliberately downward, and Han understood. The cell was compromised.

She was in his house when he returned from the market.

No words were exchanged. They didn't need to be. They were getting out, and they were getting out together.

He brought all the food in the house: a meager array of tiny vegetables and the crusty loaf of bread he'd just procured. His revolver he tucked into his waistband and he filled his pockets with the precious few bullets he had left.

And with that they set off into the countryside together on some deluded camping trip. They carried their few provisions tucked into a picnic basket, walking together as man and wife might, taking a stroll to a grassy meadow for an open-air luncheon. But they rarely stopped, walking for miles on end before stealing part of a loaf of bread from a windowsill or a few early vegetables from an untended garden, finding some forest clearing or abandoned haystack to sleep in for the night.

The warm summer temperatures kept them comfortable at night. Shelter from rain could rarely be found, but it had been a dry summer on the whole.

They could not risk a fire, not risk it spreading or the smoke being spotted. Their only entertainment was talking.

She possessed a very dry wit and a sort of gallows humor that made talking to her a delight. Ideas, too: she had so many. Han could only imagine what she would have done if life hadn't been stacked against her at every turn. From their first conversation he could see that she was intelligent. But she told stories of putting herself through the first year at university by working in the library as a reference desk attendant.

An unfamiliar light blazed behind her eyes when he asked about her studies. Calculus. Mathematics had never been Han's strong suit but Leia obviously had a knack for numbers. She told him about experiments she'd conducted, measuring something about distance in the water and on land and speed. It was all completely foreign to Han, but he let her say as much as she could about it.

Han was ready to admit it: he'd fallen for her.

Whether Leia felt the same way or if she was ready to say it, he didn't know. Affection, or some bastardized form of it, flowed freely between them. Holding hands while walking, lying curled next to each other every night. Even now they lay on their sides nestled in a bed of wild flowers, facing each other, their hands clasped between them. Whispering to each other, they were bathed in the light of the moon and stars overhead.

"Why did you come to me?" Han asked finally after days of pondering the question. When their cell had been discovered she'd snuck into _his_ house. She'd demanded they leave, together, leading him on some unknowable journey through hell-knew-where.

"We were sold out by someone on the _inside_. One of us. But… I knew I could trust you. I trust the people I love."

"I love you too, Leia."

It was such a simple statement, so pure and so true.

He trailed a finger over her jawbone and looked gently into her eyes. She looked back at him like she wanted to tell him everything, give him everything, unburden herself and finally feel human again.

A shadow crossed her face, one he recognized as the shadows of terror.

"I can never tell you what happened there," she said matter-of-factly.

"You don't ever have to," he promised. Leia turned onto her back, dropping his hands and looking up at the stars, as if she were ashamed to look at him anymore.

"I escaped through a hole in the fence. I just walked away. I didn't even try to hide it. I just knew I couldn't live one more day there. If I was seen by the guards, they would have shot me without asking a single question. I was waiting for the bullets as I walked away, but they never came."

"Leia…" he murmured, cupping her cheek in his hand, tracing his thumb across her cheekbone, bringing her back to look at him once again.

"I won't go back there, Han," she repeated as he folded her hand in his.

"I won't let that happen, Leia. I promise."

She sat up and looked him in the eye. "You don't understand. I will die before I go back there." There was a grave seriousness in her voice that he'd never heard before.

He knew how serious she was: if they were captured, she would escape or die trying. She would not return to the camps.

As if they'd even let her live past the first five minutes of capture after finding the number on her arm. It would all be over in seconds for both of them and anyone else who was around: just the cold steel of a luger against the temple, and then…

"We'll survive this, Leia. You and me. We'll go somewhere away from all of this. Somewhere where last names don't decide if you go to the military or the camps. Where we can buy as much food as we want. Someplace where the countryside won't remind us of this life."

She pulled her hands from his and wrapped her arms around him. He sat up, bringing her with him, and held her tightly to his chest. He trailed tiny kisses down her cheek, wherever his lips would reach.

Her hand softly but firmly pressed against his chest gave him halt.

"They do terrible things to you, in the camp…the soldiers…" she couldn't finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. Han knew the nature of men whose power had gone to their heads, the things they'd do purely because they could, had the time, the victims. "When they…had us…in their beds, they'd leave marks on our necks. Press their faces into our skin. Claim us."

"I'm sorry," he whispered against her skin. Instead of his lips, Han trailed a single finger over her neck and moved to brush his lips to hers.

"I decided after I left that camp that I would never let someone take my agency away from me like that again. I can't be with you in the way you want, Han. Not now. Maybe not ever. They took that from me, those bastards—"

"Shh," he murmured, cutting her off before she fell into the terrible place inside her head like she sometimes Leia, he vowed to forever be gentle. Never use his teeth to mark her, leave a love bite or a bruise. She would not feel pain at his hands. "Sweetheart, that's okay. If I get to spend every night for the rest of my life next to you, I don't care. _You_ are more important to me than that."

He brought the crease of her elbow to his lips and kissed it five times, once over each numeral. He continued the trail down her arm, following the blue vein until he held her hand in his, kissing each digit with care.

"Still beautiful," he murmured, even though he didn't know her _before_. Their lives, however long they had left, would always be measured in _befores_ and _afters_. It didn't matter, though. Han was sure he'd love _before_ Leia as much as he loved _this_ Leia. Switching to the other hand, he followed the trail back up toward her shoulder where her scapula protruded. Circular burn marks pockmarked her skin.

"Cigarettes and matches. The guard over our barracks…the louder you screamed, the longer he held them there…"

"Sweetheart…" he murmured into the hollows of her collarbone. Instead of his lips, Han trailed a gentle finger over the skin of her neck and moved his lips to her face, lavishing her jawline and cheeks with affection. He nuzzled against the soft place behind her ear, eliciting a giggle: he'd never heard her laugh before.

"Believe me, Leia. You will never have to sleep another night in someone else's bed. No one will lay a hand to you except in love. I'll tell you every day how beautiful you are and how much I love you. I'll kiss you a hundred times for every time they hurt you, if you'll let me. Please, Leia. Say you'll marry me when this is over."

"I will."

In the morning they rose from the field at the first touches of dew and pushed on toward the unknowable somewhere. Not knowing where they could go or what they would do when they arrived, if the war would ever end.

_After. _After tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

Han had had a cough since they left in the spring. It grew worse and worse as the summer progressed. Even now that the nights were getting chillier, Leia felt him sweating feverishly beside her each night, his body wracked with hacking coughs several times an hour. He became weaker and weaker until one day he could not stand. Fearing the worst, Leia had led them deep into the forest the day before so they could wait out the sickness.

She knew the signs. The blood he tried to hide coming from his lungs, the absent appetite, the way he held his chest as though he were afraid his ribs were going to fall out onto the ground. The same illness had taken her great aunt years and years ago: the consumption.

She hadn't been allowed into her aunt's bedroom for fear that the infection would find its way into her young body. But somehow, it had found its way into the only person she had left.

"Get out of here, Leia," Han demanded, slumped on the ground beside her.

"Stop it, Han. I'm not going anywhere," she replied sharply, moving to cradle his head in her lap.

"It's no use. I can't go anywhere in this condition. We both know what this is. I'm not going to get better. No doctor could help me now, even if we could find one."

As soon as he was sleeping, she broke their rule: no fires. First she cleared away a ring on the forest floor, digging down to damp soil where the smoke could rise without igniting a tree with a floating spark. Gathering handfuls of only small twigs and sticks, Leia amassed enough tinder to burn the fire for a few hours. Then she filled their little tin water pail in a cool stream nearby.

It took nearly an hour of rubbing sticks together to get the fire smouldering. As Han slept, she gathered a few sprigs of fresh needles from the fir trees nearby their campsite and when the fire was warm enough, Leia tucked the water pail into the heat and threw in two pinches of pine needles.

Han had not awoken for several hours by this point and Leia could not stop the tears that slipped down her cheeks as she sat between him and the tiny fire. He was sweating profusely now, and Leia was worried that he would be too dehydrated to make it until morning if it continued. She could only hope that the fir tea would help, that she hadn't forgotten a step or an ingredient. The recipe had come from a book she read once, _before_. It had come from an American author who related the ways of the American Indians. They'd used this tea for healing, and it was their only hope now.

Tossing the soggy needles to the side, Leia wrestled Han into an upright position against her chest. It was a messy process, trying to get the tea into his mouth from the bucket, but it was too hot to cup in her hands and they had no cups, spoons, or bowls.

In the picnic basket there was a tiny bit of bread left from an untended loaf cooling on a stump along the road. They'd only taken part of it, hoping the rightful owner would have been gracious enough to give it to them had they asked. Now Leia tore the remaining crumb in two, feeding it to Han when he was awake enough not to choke on it.

"No, Leia. Take it and go. I don't need it," he murmured. "I don't want you to die out here because of me."

_I'd rather die here with you now than after fifty years of being alone._

"Don't talk like that. We're going to make it. We have to be getting close to Switzerland. We have to start over together. Remember? We have to have our _after_. You can't leave me, Han. Not yet."

He'd slipped out of consciousness then, but she didn't stop. In his ear, she whispered to him all the things they were going to do together. Switzerland was just a stepping stone to safety. They'd hook up with a resistance cell and get to England, and then they'd go to whatever country would take them. They'd leave Europe. When she was leading the resistance cell, she'd helped people whose final destinations were Africa or South America. Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. America, if they were lucky. Places that in her life _before_, she'd only imagined. Now one of them could be their home.

They'd be married in the custom of their new home. Han could go back to laying bricks, if he wanted. He was smart enough to be a foreman, yes, that would do. Leia could find work at a library or an office after she learned enough of the language. Her English was passable and most places spoke some form of that. They'd get by. Perhaps she could continue her schooling.

"The fact of the matter," she whispered to Han's unhearing ear, "is that we have far too much ahead of us to die now."

She knew that she didn't show him love the way he deserved. He never pressured her, never made her feel like _less than_ because she stiffened against his embraces or shied from his kisses. He took it all in stride, letting her lead, content to lay beside her, holding her hand in his, if that was all she could manage.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me." Phrases like 'I love you' passed freely between the two of them, but that didn't cover everything she felt for him. Han was the only one that had ever made her feel like a person after the camps turned her into a number and the resistance made her a phantom. She'd never told him that the food he'd slip to her was often the only thing she had to eat for days at a time. She never told him that one of the other men had tried to get fresh with her on a mission and she had decided never to work with anyone but Han ever again.

His fever was rising. Leia filled the water pail again and took Han's shirt off. She dipped the sleeve in the cool river water and used it to mop his brow, hoping to break the fever.

The moon didn't cut through the thick foliage of the forest and she'd let the fire die hours ago. After forcing a few handfuls of water into his mouth, Leia brought his body to rest against the dirt and curled up beside him, her body racked with sobs.

There was only one other thing left.

Prisoners in the camps had been shot for it, and it never seemed to do any good anyways. She'd largely turned her back on her God, the reason she'd been imprisoned in the first place. Now, though, she sat beside Han and whispered the words to the Mi Sheberach: the Hebrew prayer for healing. She did not know his parents' names to fill in when it came to that part, so she instead substituted her own. _Bless and heal the one who is ill: Han, lover of Leia._ The Hebrew phrases felt unfamiliar on her tongue, but she remembered each word. _Complete healing, soon, without delay. Amen._

She repeated it over and over until she fell asleep beside him.

When she awoke in the morning she was laying perpendicular to him with her head on his chest, looking up at his face.

He was watching her sleep, a gentle smile on his face, his head propped up on one hand with the other combing carefully through her hair. His skin beneath her cheek was cool and his brow was absent of the beads of sweat that had dotted it the previous day.

"M starving. Let's find something to eat."

Leia's eyes closed and she whispered the Birkat Hagomel: the prayer of thanksgiving.


	4. Chapter 4

Running forever was not an option. They'd run out of continent, out of mild summer weather, out of will to push onward. By sheer coincidence, luck, act of God, they found an end.

It was in the chilly, golden light of the evening, and Han and Leia were looking for a place to sleep for the night that would offer protection from the wind. The sound was foreign at first: footsteps and distant chatter. They had a plan, had talked it over nearly every day as the landscape around them changed.

Han had his hand gun out of his waistband in a flash and Leia withdrew hers from the picnic basket. They hid behind twin elm trees, waiting as the voices grew closer. They were talking in some foreign language that Han didn't quite recognize: he was fluent in Polish and German and in some Russian dialects, but the western languages didn't fit right in his mouth and he'd never learned any.

"Don't shoot them unless I say," Leia mumbled urgently. It was like they'd suddenly been pushed back a year and instead of being on the run together, they were performing missions for the resistance. Han didn't ask questions, didn't hesitate to accept her at her word.

The voices were almost directly in front of them, and Leia swung out from behind the tree with her gun raised. Han mirrored her actions and found them face to face with two girls, both with their hands raised in surrender.

"Vous êtes avec la résistance?" Leia asked. Han was momentarily surprised; he'd heard a vast array of languages come from her mouth, but French was a new one. "Emmenez-nous à votre siège," she demanded, not lowering her weapon but moving one arm to pull her sleeve back to show her marks.

"Une prisonniere evade?" asked one of the girls, leaning to look at the mark more carefully. "Nous sommes avec la résistance," she added with a nod. Leia lowered her gun and Han did the same.

"Nous, aussi," Leia replied.

"Je m'appel la tigre," said the first girl. "Et elle, elle s'appel Lys. Et vous?"

"Je m'appel la fantome. Voila mon mari," Leia answered. Phantom. Her code name from the resistance. She turned to Han. "This is Tiger and Lily. They're going to take us to their resistance cell."

There was more rapid chatter that Han couldn't understand, and soon they were slipping into a small village under the cover of darkness. Lily sat with them in the hayloft of an old barn while Tiger left to find someone, and soon it was like they were back in the root cellar basement making plans again. A single lamp made only figures and vague outlines appear and everyone whispered in hushed French. Han could only sit beside Leia, knowing that she'd take care of whatever needed to happen. Then, just as quickly as it had began, the meeting disbanded and they were left alone in the barn.

Rain started to ping against the metal roof as they made a bed in the hay.

"I take it we're in France, then?" Han asked as they settled in.

"Switzerland. This was where we've been coming all along," she explained.

Of course she had a plan, a route, probably even a schedule. Contacts, safety.

"I knew the resistance was active here because it's not illegal. The Germans aren't in power. Lily and Tiger were talking about it in the woods, that's why I told you not to shoot them. They're going to forge papers for us and find us somewhere to live until the war is over."

"Your French voice is pretty," Han murmured, taking her hand. She giggled and he kissed her cheek.

"One more thing," she added, looking down with a slight blush. "They wanted to split us up but I told them we're married so they wouldn't."

"You're brilliant. And amazing," he murmured, tipping her face up to look into her eyes. "I will spend every day of the rest of my life loving you. I'm happy to be married to you." He fumbled along the edge of his shirt, which was starting to fray. He gave a gentle tug and a string pulled loose, and Han tied this around her finger with a little bow. "I'll get you a real one _after_, if you want," he promised.

"I love you," she replied, leaning to kiss him.

There was no preacher or rabbi to perform a ceremony or magistrate to fill out the paperwork. There was no canopy to stand beneath or glass to crush. Only they knew that their marriage wasn't truly legal, but it was wartime. Law meant nothing anymore in a land where Leia's very existence was outlawed. Love reigned supreme, no matter what or where or when.

They found safety on a countryside farm in the Swiss hills with a Catholic widow woman who gave them her spare room in exchange for taking care of her small farm. Leia nearly wept the first night as they crawled in between the sheets.

"I haven't slept in a bed in _three years_," she murmured as Han cradled her like a child. When he woke again later, she was tucked in beside him, sleeping peacefully. Not wanting to wake her, he didn't move.

During the day, Leia tended the garden; Han cared for animals. Meals were more filling and more regular, and for the first time since they'd met, Han saw color come to Leia's cheeks and no longer felt her bones so sharply beneath her skin.

On Saturday evenings in the fall, their hostess left them for a prayer vigil at the Catholic church nearby. Han would drag the large metal wash tub in from the porch and Leia would fill it with hot water. They'd spend the evening soaking in the tub, reclined together, reveling in the warmth of the water and each other's presence. As a child, Leia had learned to make soap from goat's milk, and when their small flock of goats had finally produced enough excess milk to turn into soap, she rejoiced at the chance to use it instead of the harsh lye. That Saturday she sat perfectly still in the water as Han spread the gentle lather over her skin and into her hair. Only after he'd gone over her entire body twice did she return the favor. Over the next few days he noticed that her skin lost its angry red tinge and her hair was turning soft and shiny instead of brittle and dry.

At night they lay next to each other on the hay-stuffed mattress under the handmade scrap quilt. She rested with her back to his chest, their legs intertwined like strands of creeping ivy.

One night she turned to face him.

"Hold me," she requested.

Leia had never asked him that before. She preferred to hold hands or lie against him. Even hugs, she shied from. Han supposed that instead of making her feel cherished it made her feel trapped. An unfortunate reminder of the terrors pressed upon her by other men.

Han settled on his side and she leaned into his chest. The bridge of her nose fell against his sternum and her forehead fit into the curve of his neck, her breath dancing across his collar. He rubbed gently across her back-it was rare that he had this sort of access to the fine planes of her body and he took care to massage each muscle in turn, even when the arm lying beneath her started to tingle.

"I love you," he murmured into her ear. "Let the tension go, Sweetheart." Moving his hands from her back to her hairline, he changed his firm massage to a feather-like touch. Slowly, he felt her weight sag into him, her slight form melding into his. "I wouldn't trade this for the world," he whispered, "or anything in it."


	5. Chapter 5

Since the day they'd left Han's home in the spring, they hadn't been apart for more than a few hours. So on the day that Han went to town to get supplies for the winter, Leia found herself unable to do anything besides worry.

Would he be discovered? Would someone realize he wasn't who he said he was and that he had fake papers? What if someone came to the farm instead, and grabbed her? She could be captured and he'd never know, or worse…. come home to find her shot dead on the farmhouse floor…,

She spent the whole day waiting, wishing that she'd gone with him or hadn't let him go in the first place. All day she kept picturing when she'd come home to find the house ransacked, her parents gone. Supper went untouched on her plate and Leia excused herself to wait for him.

The sun was starting to drip below the horizon and gray clouds were settling in: it would be dark and rainy soon. _Where are you?_

Han came around the bend in the road and saw Leia leaning on the porch railing, obviously waiting for him. After a day of being worried about her beyond all reason, the wave of relief he felt was more than welcome. Had he not been hauling the cart with all their winter provisions, he would have broken into a run to meet her. Leia met him halfway up the garden path. He dropped the handle to the cart and caught her as she jumped toward him, twirling her around as she clung to him.

"I was so worried," she mumbled, taking his face in her hands and kissing him on the mouth.

"Me, too. But nothing happened. I got all the supplies and I won't have to leave again all winter," he promised into her hair, holding her tightly to his chest.

"Never leave me again," she begged.

"I won't," he whispered. "I brought you something," he said, hoping the change in subject would clear the air of hopeless desperation. She stepped back as he reached to fish through one of the sacks tucked into the cart. He unfolded his hand, revealing a little square of something wrapped in shiny foil. Leia unwrapped it carefully.

"Is this… _chocolate_?" she asked, almost in awe.

"Yeah. I had a little cash left over after getting the supplies and I thought you might like it."

Placing the small square on her tongue, Leia gave him a rare smile as it melted.

The war lasted one more year.


	6. Chapter 6

His back ached. It was a fairly normal occurrence, he supposed, for a 73-year old man. This bed was far more comfortable than a bed of hay or rushes, but he still needed a hot water bottle now and then to ease the muscles.

Leia was curled beside him, lost in sleep. Once they had money again, Han offered to buy her a real wedding ring. She'd found a very simple one fashioned of golden wire twisted into a small bow at an arts and crafts fair. It looked just like the little scrap of thread that he'd tied around her finger that night in the barn, and she wore it proudly. Even now, it was perched on her finger that was spread out with the rest of her delicate hand across her pillow.

It had taken more than a year of sleeping in a real bed of their own before she finally stopped sleeping with one eye open. Now she took up her fair share of the bed and then some, often creeping onto his side for warmth or comfort.

After the war, after they'd moved to Canada, she'd grown healthy again. Her hair was soft and shiny, her bones no longer protruded at odd angles, her features weren't sunken like that of a skeleton. The tattoo was still on her arm, and she wore long sleeves even in the heat of summer to cover it, the tangible reminder of her past. Something she could never forgive or forget. He saw it in her eyes, sometimes, shadows of the past. There wasn't anything he could do in those instances but hold her, take her in his arms, rub her shoulders, kiss her temples.

When they'd applied for asylum, they decided their marriage was legal enough as it was, and had simply explained that there was no documentation of the ceremony. They had no birth certificates, either; no paperwork that ever proved they'd existed before that very moment. Leia had left her true last name like she'd left the camp, taking on the name 'Solo'. That became their new last name together, and in February of 1946, they boarded a boat for the land that had become their new home.

Han rolled out of bed, went after an aspirin, and started the coffee pot. The newspaper was at the bottom of the stairs outside the door and he flipped through it while the coffee perked. He'd learned to speak English pretty well after a while, but reading the tiny print of the paper talking about unfamiliar happenings sometimes was a struggle. So many odd rules and spellings that he'd never quite get the hang of… Leia'd read it later, though, and she'd tell him if there was anything interesting. The comics page was something he could understand, usually, especially if the pictures were good. The fat orange cat lounged in one of the strips, and Han chuckled to himself as he read the jokes.

Once the coffee had collected in the pot, Han poured a cup and stirred in a heaping teaspoon of sugar. After the war, he'd learned that Leia had a sweet tooth and it had remained ever since.

"Good morning, my love," Han whispered, sitting on the side of the bed and wrapping her in his arms. "Your brother will be here for breakfast soon."

Leia groaned into the pillow, rolling under him and searching for a kiss. He obliged her and then passed her the steaming cup of coffee.

They'd found him after the war. Luke. Han had learned more about their childhood from Luke in a month than he'd ever heard from Leia after 40 years. It was also Luke that finally told him their old family name—Organa. Luke also took a new name before emigrating to Canada. He'd been a parachuter in the war before being captured, and he chose a name that translated to 'walks in the sky' in English. Han and Leia Solo lived in the upstairs apartment of 28 Sault St. in a neighborhood around Toronto. Luke Himmelswanderer lived in the first-floor apartment.

As Han began cracking eggs into a fry pan, he listened to the familiar sounds of Leia getting ready for the day on the other side of the wall. For so long, she'd been like a ghost, even in their home, moving quietly, stepping softly, as if afraid that one loud noise would break the spell and send her back to hell.

Over the years, though, the difference between Leia and the ghost that haunted her gradually became larger and larger until there was another sort of _before_ and _after_. This other _before_ Leia didn't smile or laugh, even though she was free to do so now. She would only seek physical comfort from the safety of their bed. _After_ Leia had a sharp and witty sense of humor that could match Han's blow for blow. She would laugh every time he rubbed his nose behind her ear or tickled her ribs. She'd take his hand in the supermarket or kiss him in the bakery.

Han loved this Leia just as much as he'd loved all the ones before.

After the anxious day on the farm so long ago, when she'd begged him never to leave her again, he had worked tirelessly to keep the promise. He was never far from her side; they went everywhere together. With Luke, they'd opened a small kosher bakery a few blocks from their apartment. Luke handled the baking, Leia looked over the books, and Han worked with the customers. It was an arrangement that suited them well over the years, and they were able to enjoy a comfortable retirement now.

Leia appeared from the bedroom just as Luke's familiar tapping sounded at the door.

"Shalom Aleichem," Luke greeted. Leia returned in kind, kissing his cheek. Luke was the only one Leia ever spoke to in Hebrew.

Breakfast was an unhurried affair. They'd risen in plenty of time to make the short drive. After clearing up the dishes, Leia changed into the dress she'd chosen for this day; its short sleeves did not hide the tattoo on her arm that had faded to a gray-green with time. While Luke was fetching his jacket, Han took a moment to kiss each number, something he'd done countless times over the years.

They had only one car between them and this is what they used to drive to Bathurst Street. They, along with the other guests of honor, had been instructed to park around the back of the museum. They'd be brought through the museum to the auditorium, rather than having to wait in the lobby.

A projector was aimed at the wall behind the stage. Black and white pictures scrolled across, but Han could not look at them. They weren't photographs to him, or to any of them sitting on the stage. They were memories. Ghosts who haunted the _after_. Leia shoved her trembling hand into his and gripped it with uncommon strength. He recognized some of the others on the stage: some of them had taken the same boat and been settled in the same area by the Canadian government. Many had been faithful customers of the bakery. They were all lost in thought now. No time for pleasantries.

The doors open and people flooded into the auditorium, speaking in reverent, hushed tones about the group gathered on the stage. After an interlude, a man in a suit stepped up to the podium.

"Good morning. Before we begin our presentation today, I'd like to offer a sincere and personal thank you to every individual seated on this stage. They've agreed to share their stories with us. Winston Churchill famously declared that 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' These ladies and gentlemen have give us their true testaments. From them, we will learn. _For_ them, we will not allow history to repeat itself. I'd like to welcome each of you to the grand opening of the Toronto Holocaust Museum."

_AN: Thank you to everyone who made it through-please leave a review or two!_

_I shall be ever grateful to LaJulie24 for her support and encouragement as I wrote this. You are a dear and I am so lucky to have had your help in this endeavor. And of course, this would not be so polished without the incredible Knighted Rogue who took away all the commas and emdashes I too-liberally sprinkled throughout this. Without both of these incredible ladies, I would not have been able to publish this._


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